Read Chapter 20: The Fisherman's Deal

The air in LeFebvre’s boat shed smelled of tar and old rope, and the hiss of the tide against the piles beneath the floorboards was a sound Elise had learned to hate. It was the sound of hiding. She had spent too many nights listening to it in the caves, shivering, waiting for a brother who never came back.

LeFebvre stood with his back to her, coiling a length of wet line with methodical patience. His scar caught the lantern light—a pale seam running from temple to jaw, the kind of mark a man earns when he gets too close to something sharp and unforgiving.

“You should not have come here,” he said without turning.

“You told me to leave the island by week’s end,” Elise said. “I need a reason to go, and I need a reason to stay. You owe me that much.”

He turned. His eyes were dark, tired. He looked like a man who had not slept properly in months. “I owe you nothing.”

“You put my name on your list to protect me. That is not nothing. That is a debt.”

He let the line drop. It landed with a soft thump on the planks. For a long moment, he just looked at her, and she saw something shift behind his eyes—a decision being made, or perhaps abandoned.

“You want the truth?” he said. “Then sit down and stop shaking like a gull in a storm. You make me nervous.”

Elise did not sit. She crossed her arms and waited.

“I am the informant,” he said.

The words landed like stones. She had known, of course. Half-known. Suspected. But hearing him say it was different. The postmistress had called him a traitor. The widow had called him worse. And here he stood, in his oilskin coat and fisherman’s boots, admitting it.

“Why?” she asked.

“Because they have my mother.”

The air left her lungs. His mother. Old Madame LeFebvre, who had taught Elise to knit when she was a girl, who had given her bread during the hard winter of ’41.

“They took her in March,” he said. “Not to a camp. Somewhere worse. A house on the east coast where they keep people they want to break. They send me a letter every month, typed, no signature. They tell me she is well. They tell me what they will do to her if I stop being useful.”

He walked to a small locker and pulled out a crumpled envelope. He held it out. Elise did not take it.

“I take it you have not read this,” she said.

“Read it. I want you to see what I see.”

She took the envelope. The paper was thin, cheap, standard issue. The handwriting inside was not his mother’s—a German clerk’s neat script. Three lines. *She is well. She sends her love. Continue your good work.*

“They send the same letter every month,” he said. “Sometimes they change a word. *She is comfortable.* *She is hopeful.* It is how I know she is still alive. When the letters stop, I will know she is dead.”

Elise folded the letter and handed it back. Her fingers were steady, but her heart was not. “How many names have you given them?”

“Enough to keep her alive. Not enough to sleep at night.” He turned away, busying himself with the line again. “The list I gave them was half lies. I bought time for the innocent ones. The guilty ones—the ones who would sell their own mothers for a sack of flour—those I gave freely.”

“And the widow’s son?” Elise asked. “Was he guilty?”

LeFebvre’s hands stilled. “No.”

“Then why is he in a German prison?”

“Because the Germans demanded a fresh name that week. They wanted proof I was still loyal. I gave them the weakest I could find—a boy who had been seen talking to a resistance contact twice, nothing more.” He turned to face her. “Do you want to know what I gave them in exchange for keeping you off that list?”

She did not answer. She was not sure she wanted to know.

“Your brother’s hiding place,” he said. “The barn. I told them he had been there but moved on. I told them he was dead—or as good as. I made them believe he was not worth the bullets.”

A cold fury rose in her throat. “You traded my brother’s life for mine.”

“I traded your brother’s *location* for your name. And I pray every night that I made the right choice.” He stepped closer. “André was alive three weeks ago. I have not heard of any capture. That means you still have a chance to find him—if you leave before they decide to look harder.”

She wanted to strike him. She wanted to scream at him. But the fury was tangled with something else—a thread of understanding she did not want to pull.

“Why are you telling me this?” she asked.

“Because the war is ending. Everyone feels it. The Germans are getting nervous, and nervous men do desperate things.” He looked at the door, as if expecting someone to be listening. “They have started asking for more names. Bigger names. And I cannot give them any more innocent people.”

“So you want to stop.”

“I want to get my mother out of that house before they decide she is no longer useful.” He met her eyes. “I have kept a list. Names of every collaborator I know—the true ones, the ones who would sell the whole island for a visa. I have been collecting them for months.”

Elise’s heart quickened. “You want me to take it.”

“I want you to use it.” He reached inside his coat and pulled out a folded piece of oilskin, bound with twine. “After the war, when the liberators come, this list will need to reach the right hands. The hands of someone who will see justice done—not revenge.”

“Why me?”

“Because you are the only one on this island who still believes in something besides survival.” He held the package out. “I will give you the names. In return, you will promise me something.”

She looked at the oilskin package, then at his face. “What?”

“When the war is over, you will make sure my mother is safe first. Before anyone else. Before the list, before the names, before your brother. You will find her and you will protect her.”

Elise thought of André, cold and hungry in some cave. She thought of the widow’s son, rotting in a German cell because one man had been too afraid to say no.

“I cannot promise that,” she said.

“Then take the list anyway.” He pressed it into her hands. “I am giving it to you because it is the only card I have left to play. But I need you to understand something.”

He leaned closer. His voice dropped to a whisper.

“There is a name on that list you will not want to see. When you find it, you will have to choose who you trust.”

Elise’s fingers tightened around the oilskin. “What name?”

He shook his head. “I have already told you too much. Go. Hide it where they will not find it. And Elise—” He caught her wrist. “Do not tell the doctor. Not yet. There are things about him you do not know.”

She pulled her hand free. “You said my brother was in the caves. Which caves?”

“The ones the Germans have been mapping for months.” He smiled, but it was a tired, broken thing. “They are not looking for escape routes. They are looking for what your brother found down there. And if they find it before you do, none of this will matter.”

Outside, the tide had turned. The water was rising, and the sound of it filling the harbor was like a drumbeat counting down to something Elise could not name.

She tucked the oilskin package into her coat and walked out into the grey evening without looking back.